Maximum Impact
by Raven Blanchard
Summary: In a world that should not exist, lives a girl who should not exist. (SI-OC) (M for language, just in case.)
1. Chapter 1

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A/N: So. I just finished reading Clan of Samsara, which is a Naruto fanfic about what is basically a community of SI characters, banding together to form their own clan during the Warring Clans Era. I fell in love with this idea.

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PROLOGUE

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The Question has existed for longer than living memory, people would say. It is as old as time, and as ancient as the spoken tongue. It traverses cultures, crosses the barriers that define "shinobi" from "civilians," and breaks the boundaries of countries. However, it is as unknown as it is well-known, for although most people across the Elemental Countries know The Question, none of them really know what it asks.

The Question, as everyone who ever heard of it knows, is hilariously easy, and yet at the same time impossible to answer correctly. Such is perhaps because no one truly knows of its nature, no one truly understands what answer it seeks from those who hear it. All they know is that the answer to it, if deemed acceptable, is the password for entry into the Land of Infinity. It is the ticket of acceptance into the advanced civilization — or so rumors say — of the Dead City. Everybody knows it, and at the same time nobody does.

Nobody understands why the sole continental landmass separate from the Elemental Countries was named as the Land of _Inifinity_ , of all things, nor do they know why its people are consolidated into only one community. For that matter, they also do not know why that community decided to call itself a _Dead_ City. Nobody knows why every three years Seekers from the Dead City intrude on houses and orphanages and ask children The Question, why they take some children with them and leave the rest. They don't know why The Question is the Dead City's "admission test", why The Question is posed the way it is, why there is even a Question in the first place.

Though it isn't for lack of trying to find out on their part.

Over the centuries, shinobi clans sent skilled information-gatherers across the seas and to the mysterious city of child-stealers, only for them to never return. There have been expeditions, of explorers and daring individuals, tasked with unraveling the enigma that is the Land of Infinity. None of those expeditions made it back to their home lands; none of them even made it so far as the 5-mile off-shore defenses of the Dead City. There were wars waged in the name of "saving the next generation," and the Dead City came out on top from all of them. If one were to look underwater around those defenses, they would see the multitude of fallen ships and ruined boats and human skulls.

Whenever a certain clan or group of people would decide to attack against the secretive society — it's a _preemptive strike_ , they'd all say, for who in their right mind would let that much power remain in the hands of such an ambiguous lot? — they'd be shot down almost immediately, no matter who or where they are, their bases or compounds would be annihilated by weapons of such destructive power the very thought of them makes grown men tremble in fear to this day. People across the countries have tried to decipher The Question, have dissected its entirety down to the last syllables and inflections, yet none were able to discern it's true meaning.

They eventually learned to stop fighting the Dead City, deeming it pointless and futile. It's not like the people from the Dead City were evil, after all. They only took very few children — just one or two every triennial visit, and the parents of the Taken were always sent monthly packages containing a strange palm-sized device that played recorded videos and messages from their children, who always seemed happy or at the very least safe and content, which was more than what life outside the Dead City can offer. The video devices melted after a three-second countdown past the end of the relay (or if their outer casings were compromised in any way, which ruined the chance of the technology to be studied and replicated) so there was never any lasting evidence of the Dead City or the Taken, but it was a well-known fact that the Dead City was technologically advanced, reclusive, and safe.

There came a point in history when the constant warring of clans resulted in widespread famine and disease, and parents all around begged the Seekers to take their children with them even after those children were declared unworthy of living in the Dead City. Some even went so far as to threaten to kill the Seekers if they continued to refuse their children, but those threats never came to pass — all Seekers are always encased by an invisible force when they leave the Land of Infinity, and nothing they do not allow to come in contact with them ever gets across that force. Not even chakra.

As Hoshino Rei stares at the Seeker kneeling before her, she remembers what her mother — her latest one — told her about the mysterious Land of Infinity (which she knows for a fucking fact should not exist) and the Dead City. She remembers the stories about the Taken. About the explorers who never returned.

She also remembers a bunch of shit about this world — this _universe_ — that she has no business knowing much less remembering. She remembers monsters the size of Nebraska that have so many fucking tails it should be anatomically impossible. She remembers a stupid red-eyed idiot who can vomit fire. She remembers an equally stupid blonde idiot who talks weird with his dattebayo shit.

She remembers Seattle, Washington. She remembers her bedroom-slash-library. She remembers her pet dog, an adorable Samoyed with the fluffiest white fur that she named Leo. She remembers her language. Her culture. Her home.

Her son.

" **Who were you?** " The Seeker asks her in an almost hopeful voice after he puts up an opaque barrier around them with a wave of his hand, so no one who doesn't know what The Question really is would know how to answer it, and Rei knows that it's because there hasn't been any Taken children in nearly fifty years. Children hadn't known how to answer The Question anymore, hadn't understood what was being asked of them in the first place.

And it makes Rei want to laugh and laugh and _laugh_ , because she's read shit like this in her past life — something she now knows isn't unique to just her — and she's gotta admit, this is some next level self-insertion. This, the Land of Infinity and the Dead City and the Seekers and the Taken... this is almost self- _invasion_ , if that makes any goddamned sense. It isn't even supposed to be possible in the first place, and now she finds out that not only is it actually possible, it's _superfuckingpossible times a thousand._

"Rei. Hoshino Rei," she tells him, and as the sixty-something-old man visibly sags in disappointment she adds, in English, "Same as my name in my past life, which is damn weird. Not to mention unfair. I think Death-sama screwed me over, that albino bastard. I'm sure you got a different name. But then maybe that's because my parents were Japanese immigrants to the 'States. Were you Japanese?"

"I..." He fumbles, eyes wide as saucers. "I wasn't. I was... I was a Filipino." Then he shakes his head. "Never mind that! You're... you're one of us! There hasn't been one in decades!"

Which Rei knows, because _everybody_ knows that, but whatever.

She shrugs.

"We thought there would never be another one!" the Seeker exclaims, and he wraps his bony arms around her and hugs her like she'd squirt out molten gold or something if he squeezes hard enough.

Hoshino Rei would be the last child to enter the Dead City.


	2. Chapter 2

_"Leaving home in a sense involves a kind of second birth in which we give birth to ourselves." ~Robert Neelly Bellah_

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ONE

 _Butterfly Wings_

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 _Somewhere, far away from the Fire and the Leaves, across the seas and beyond its Waves and Mist, is a land undiscovered by the known world – a land that is dead and barren, with mountains upon mountains of human skulls lining the country's horizon. It is a place shrouded in shadows and, legends say, is populated by the dead._

When Hoshino Rei first hears about this, about what the rest of the world thinks of her homeland, her first reaction is laughter. Loud, raucous, unrestrained laughter. _Mugen no Kuni_ – or the Land of Infinity – was hardly barren, much less filled with mountains of human skulls. Although, the rumours aren't _that_ far from the truth. They are right about the land being shrouded in shadows and populated by the dead. Two out of four isn't that bad, she supposes, as far as rumours go.

Her city – the Dead City – from a bird's-eye-view, wasn't any different from the rest of the Land of Infinity, which the city sat smack dab in the middle of. It was filled with trees and gnarled messes of vines and shrubs, with beautiful – and often poisonous – flowers and fruits hanging off of tangled branches, dangling no farther than inches away from one another. It was a dangerous land, Rei would agree, and she might even venture to say that it was deadly, but the place was hardly _dead_. Perhaps the true description of the _Mugen no Kuni_ was lost in translation, for in this World's language "a deadly land" doesn't sound very different from "a _dead_ land" or "a land of _death_ ," and the phrases all have very different – albeit closely related – connotations.

In any case, it was where Rei lived (again). It was in the Dead City – in the Land of Infinity – where she had spent most of her (second) childhood, and she loved that place to bits and pieces. It was her home away from home. The amazing vacation she can never ever come home from. A place full of people that dedicated their entire lives to recreate the lives they had lost, and it was where she _belonged._

Where she could fade into the crowd of grieving corpses.

She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, focusing once more on the fact that these Leaf people are stupid. They think they know her and Leo because they think they know where they came from, when in fact they know shit about both. For one, she's not really ten years old. Not quite.

Also, her companion, Leo, isn't exactly _human_ – being an autonomous, thinking entity doesn't exactly qualify an artificially intelligent synth for an evolutionary upgrade – but that's neither here nor there.

Were she truly the ten-year-old girl she appears to be, she would have been _offended_ by the ridiculous notions that these foreign strangers have about her (second) home. Or perhaps even _flattered_ by the sheer terror that the mere mention of her homeland can induce. But she isn't (really) a ten-year-old girl and she isn't (exactly) a person of this World, so she laughs.

One might wonder how a city, which by definition is an urban place inhabited by humans, could possibly function when it's filled with such dense shrubbery and poisonous plants. If asked such a question, Rei would only smile the smile that her (second) mother had labelled the Smile #5: close-lipped and secretive. Then Rei would point at the ground and say something along the lines of "where else could you build a village in that Kami-forsaken place but _underground_?"

After which she would most probably add something like "you dumbass" at the end if she felt chirpy.

But no one asks her about how the Dead City works. No one even asks her about her life in the Dead City, how weird it must have been to live underground for years one end. No one asks her about her people's culture, architecture, or government.

In fact, no one asks her much about the City, except to inquire about its fall.

Which is really quite asshole-ish of them, come to think of it.

"Hoshino-san Reo-san?"

Rei quirks her head up, snapping out of her reverie. Beside her, Leo turns to the speaker – a twenty-something year-old cannon fodd- ... _chuunin_ , she totally meant _chuunin_.

"Yes, shinobi-san?" she prompts the chuunin. He throws her a wary glance, before forcing a smile that looks more like a cross between distrustful and constipated than any other positive feeling.

"Sandaime Hokage-sama has approved of your petition for citizenship."

"About damn time," Rei mumbles.

The chuunin twitches. "What was that, Hoshino-san?"

"She says it's about time we became part of the Leaf," Leo quickly salvages. "Rei hime-sama has been looking forward to being a Konoha citizen, after all."

"I... see." the ninja mumurs disbelievingly.

"We thank you for your assistance, shinobi-san," Leo offered diplomatically. "Please send Hokage-sama our regards."

Well, Rei thinks to herself. That could have gone better. She didn't even get to see the weird-ass Hokage Hat!


	3. Chapter 3

_"The innocence of childhood is like the innocence of animals." ~Clint Eastwood_

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TWO

 _Ripples and Eddies_

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The first time Uzumaki Naruto saw a dead girl was in the village's playground. He didn't quite know yet that the girl had already died at the time (although in all fairness she had been standing and breathing and appearing, for all intents and purposes, very much _alive_ ), and she was smiling at him – an arm stretched towards him and a dainty little hand held open – and asking if he wanted to be her friend.

It had taken Naruto an inordinate amount of time to understand her question, to comprehend the implications and wonder if the girl's intentions were genuine. After all, Naruto didn't lack friends because nobody offered – he lacked friends because he'd been offered friendship many times and those offers all turned out to be fake.

He was the common toy of the village children, and they all found it hilarious that he kept believing that their offers of friendship were genuine, because _who would want to be friends with a demon?_

"Why would you want to be friends with _me_?" he asked the strange girl, his demeanor leaking suspicion.

He'd been expecting her to say something about loneliness, to say that either he or she felt lonely so she wanted to be friends with him. He'd heard it all before from the kids who made fun of him. From the kids who offered him something they never wanted to give in the first place. ' _Because you look lonely_ ,' some of them said, or ' _because I'm lonely_.' It was always about loneliness with the fake offers – he didn't know if that was a trend or if he really looked that pathetic – and although he foolishly fell for it every time before, this time he was a touch more wary. He didn't know who she was, hadn't met her before, and he never saw her play with the other kids in the playground. This was his first time meeting her, his first time _seeing_ her, even, and she was ignoring all the other gaping kids around them and smiling at him and offering him friendship as if she really wanted to be friends with him. _Him_. The demon child and abomination. The monster of Konoha. And that can't be true at all, can it?

A small (large, very large) part of him, however, still hoped that she was being truthful. It was the pathetic part of him, he supposed, the sad and optimistic one that was admittedly stupid and shameless, that hoped she would see something in him worth being friends with. Something that wasn't the monster that everyone else saw.

What she said in reply surprised him.

"Well, I guess you can say it's networking."

He frowned. "Netwhat?"

Her soft smile didn't falter, didn't evolve into the usual sneer that the other kids did when they realized he didn't know difficult words. " _Networking_ ," she repeated slowly. "Meaning, making connections beforehand so you can use such connections in times of need. It's simple, really. I want to be friends with you because you will be the Hokage one day. I want powerful friends."

And the way she said it was so blunt, so honest and no-nonsense. She didn't talk about loneliness or wanting to help him. In fact, she didn't talk about emotions at all. But for all that her words were cold and business-like, her words also seemed… kind. Like she _understood_ that he didn't want her to play his emotions against him. And she just smiled there and said that he will become Hokage one day as if it were the most obvious truth and that doubting it would be stupid. She sounded so _sure_ … no, that would imply that she was _reassuring_ him of something, and her tone insinuated that reassurances were unnecessary. Like… like the sun setting and how people didn't need to be reassured that it will rise again because it was… _natural._ That was the word. She sounded so _natural_. She just said it like the way others would talk about natural things. _Nice weather. I'm going to water the plants. You will be Hokage one day._

Her honesty and faith in him was refreshing.

Naruto couldn't help it: he laughed.

When he was done laughing she was sporting a full grin, her grey eyes sparkling with mirth. "So," she said, "Does that mean you accept?"

He nodded excitedly, unable to wipe the ecstatic smile off his face. "Of course! And I'll even make you my right-hand woman when I'm Hokage!"

She chuckled at that. "I just realized we don't know each other's names."

Naruto paused, then smiled and scratched his head awkwardly. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and I'll become Hokage one day, believe it!"

"I believe it, don't worry," she giggled at his enthusiasm. He replied with a sheepish laugh. With a playful bow she added, "Hoshino Rei at your service, Hokage-kun."

And so a friendship was born between them, a friendship that Naruto knew would last forever, with that absolute certainty only ten-year-old children can have.


End file.
